[Shotimes] Now (OT) rollovers

[BJamesjr@aol.com]

> 2 years ago I was driving my mom's explorer to my aunt's
> house in middle New York.  I got a blow out while crossing the Hudson
> River on the Beacon Bridge.  The "truck" felt very squirrelly, wanting
> to fish tail, but I was able to drive it fine off the bridge, through
> the toll booth and up the nearest exit ramp to a side 
> street.  

Many years ago I had a blowout on the front of my Camaro at 70mph on the interstate.  There was no drama to it, I just pulled onto the shoulder and changed the tire.

Recently Car&DriverTV got a very used Explorer with a lot of miles on it, and rigged a device on a rear wheel that would let the air out rapidly under remote control.  They did a test by running the vehicle at a certain speed and deflating a rear tire when the driver didn't know when it was going to happen.  They did this at 40 mph, then 50 mph, then 60 mph.  There was no problem at all for the driver.  Then they did it at 50 or 60 mph while having the driver take his hands off of the steering wheel.  Again no problems.  They finally concluded that they could not explain why drivers were losing control.  They also noted that the Goodyear tires on the Explorer performed very well to repeated deflatings at speed.